


Right-Hand Man

by arby



Category: Heroes - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, M/M, WIP
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2009-11-16
Updated: 2009-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-03 00:50:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arby/pseuds/arby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU for <i>Five Years Gone</i> - Nathan!Sylar is President, and he wants Mohinder to be his right-hand man.</p><hr/><p>Mohinder picked up the phone gingerly, sweat dripping from his body in the unseasonably hot May weather, and Nathan purred in his ear like a great cat, "Can you come over tonight?"</p><p>It was an undercurrent of something, that hungry sound again, in his voice that caught Mohinder's attention, even more than the words themselves. He opened his mouth to say <i>No</i> and heard himself saying <i>Yes</i> instead. He realized he was hard as a rock and trembling like an aspen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> In this universe, Mohinder and Peter were lovers.

In retrospect Mohinder could pinpoint the day his world stopped making sense. Not the obvious, not the day they lost the battle for the future – the day Peter died – but the day after, when all was ashes in his mouth, his world collapsed and broken, and Nathan Petrelli called him up, somewhat out of the blue, and asked him to be his Minister of Science or whatever they called it in this country. High-ranking advising scientist on some kind of presidential committee of one. Nathan, who'd barely said two words to him (and probably some variation on “Get out!”, at that) the only time they met before. Who now insisted on Mohinder's flying down to meet with Nathan right away, and Mohinder found himself at lunch in the White House, across from a man who'd just been elected President, and yet who seemingly had eyes only for him. The president stared at Mohinder in a disturbingly intimate fashion for a long silent minute. Finally he spoke.

”I suppose you're wondering why you're here.”

”I am more than a little curious, I admit.”

”I understand you have a computer program that identifies these... genetic mutants.”

It wasn't a question. Mohinder raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

Nathan smiled not at all like a shark, his teeth being much less pointy.

“I want to help these people, to free them from the burden they carry. I know you want that too. If I gave you the funding, I'm talking real dollars here, could you find me a cure?”

”Honestly I couldn't say, we don't even know if the ... condition can be cured.” Mohinder wasn't about to get into detail with this stranger – even if he was Peter's brother.

The president waved his hand, shooing that pesky problem away like a fly.

”Okay, but let's assume there is a cure. Can you find it for me?”

”I am willing to try. Not to sound immodest, but I believe if anyone can - other than my late father - it would be me.”

”That's more like it - there's your can-do attitude.”

Nathan smiled again, slower this time. Something about it made Mohinder’s skin creep as if it were trying to emigrate from his body.

_Don't be silly_, he scolded himself. _You barely know him. There's no reason to be afraid_. But there it was, nonetheless.

* * * * *

Nathan arranged everything - got him a top-flight laboratory, more geniuses on staff than you could shake a stick at, a house in the best neighborhood in Washington (because Mohinder had to move to DC – that turned out to be a clause in the mouse type), and if he was invited over to the White House all the time, that was a privilege, wasn't it? Mohinder wasn't a complete idiot, he knew most of the social capital he was rapidly accruing came from his close association with the president.

But he never felt like they really knew each other, Nathan and he - something in the president’s persona kept Mohinder always at arm's length, emotionally. But Nathan seemed to enjoy inviting him to dinner, and then there were drinks in one of the many living rooms, by the fire, and when it got to be late Nathan would insist that Mohinder stay over, in the Lincoln bedroom or Queens or whichever famous guest room he wanted. Mohinder tried them all but couldn't get much sleep in any of them. He guessed it was the so-called White House ghosts, or something, that gave him such awful nightmares in the White House. In the morning he didn’t remember what they were about, just the feeling of being trapped, hunted.

After about six months of this, things abruptly changed. Nathan was sitting on a loveseat, legs crossed in a way that would look positively fey if anyone else did it. The fire's witchlight played idly over his face, which in turn seemed to shimmer oddly if one stared too long at him. A trick of the light, surely.

“You know, Mohinder – I do believe you are my only friend.”

Mohinder was acutely discomfited by this. He himself spent more time with Nathan than he did with anyone else, yet he wouldn't call the man a friend. _Surely that makes me a bad person._ Not knowing what to say, he kept silent.

“I think I've been very generous, not to mention patient. But eventually everyone has to collect, don't you think?” The question was rhetorical.

Mohinder squirmed in his chair, like a schoolboy caught out in his lessons, then forced himself to stop. A small, buried part of him had the sudden, horrible premonition that he was about to be flayed alive.

“If you're talking about the research, there's no possible way anyone could be expected-“

“No. I'm not talking about the research.”

Nathan's eyes had that look again, that scary, intense, _familiar _look. He didn't smile, but spoke in a smiling tone that was worse than if he had actually smiled.

”Come here.” He patted the cushion next to him, as if talking to a dog. Mohinder found himself there without conscious volition.

”It doesn't have to be so bad, you know.”

Nathan's voice was deeper than ever, hypnotically so - Mohinder felt like a mouse in front of a snake.

”I can make it so good for you, I promise. I just have to take you apart and put you back together again - you'll be better than ever. You’ll see.”

The words were nonsense, he wasn't even taking them in - he was fixed on those eyes like a spit. Glowing amber in the rich reflected firelight like smoldering embers, they seemed to ignite something in Mohinder, a tiny spark he didn't even know he had. At least that was his explanation for what happened next.

What happened next was that Mohinder leaned forward and kissed Nathan, tentative at first, like a boy at his junior high prom, then more intensely, until his heart was pounding in his chest so loudly he thought surely it could be heard in the eerie silence broken only by the crackling of the fire, and his hands tightened convulsively on the expensively upholstered chair. Too soon for his liking, Nathan broke away and with a sable look said, “I can't.” His voice was rougher and even lower than ever; Mohinder felt it deliciously grazing his nerve ends, whiskey-brown and hot as stubble against his cheek.

Nathan's eyes were dark with some volcanic emotion, kept under wraps as always. “As much as I want to - and believe me, I do - they'd use it to crucify me.”

The bitterness Mohinder felt surprised him again. He rolled his eyes.

“Oh, please. They already think we're lovers - what difference does it make now?”

Nathan seemed genuinely taken aback for the first time Mohinder could remember. His nostrils flared but he remained calm.

”Maybe they do, but they don't have any proof. I just can't risk it right now, my standing is too precarious.” He paused, looking strangely reluctant. “I'm sorry.”

”Cost, risk, and profit - is that all you care about?” Mohinder spat. “Call me a car. I'm going home.”

”Give me a little time, to strengthen my position.”

”You'll still be president, won't you? Unless you've crowned yourself King and Dictator for life, I really don't see how it'll be any different.”

_You led me on_, he wanted to say. _Why'd you even start, if you knew you weren't going to follow through? Tease._

"Let me see what I can do. If I get the right people in my debt, the others won't dare move against me.”

_Whatever_. Mohinder was exhausted. He felt suddenly that everything was wrong, and he had no idea what would or could be done to fix it. He scrubbed at his face with his hands, and waited by the kitchen door for his car in silence.


	2. Chapter 2

A few weeks went by, in which Nathan and Mohinder did not see each other. Mohinder gave him brief updates by phone every 10 days or so. He tried not to shiver at the sensation of Nathan's voice against his ear, so intimate, even over the telephone wires. _I don't even like this guy_, he reminded himself. _Not like it was with_ _Peter_. Of course, not liking someone personally had never stopped him from having meaningless sex with them – he remembered that almost entirely useless bastard of a grad student who'd fucked him into the mattress on more than one occasion a few years ago.

He also tried to ignore the dreams that plagued him, the fact that he still could not remember them, the fact that too often he found himself erect in the morning, restlessly rubbing the heel of his hand against his dick, and how he thought about Nathan; his golden-honey-hazel eyes, that dark sandpaper voice, his muscled chest straining against Mohinder, or how thick and hard his cock would be, and it was at that point Mohinder usually spilt on the sheets with a volcanic force that seemed to drain him of all energy. It was wrong, he knew – a continuation of the wrong feeling that had come over him that night. But it was seemingly inescapable.

Then one night he dreamt that he was in the Lincoln bedroom, and he opened his eyes in the dream to see a darkness in the corner, crouching like a fat black spider in the Louis IV chair, and the light flickered and he saw it was Sylar, the aura of menace around him palpable like a poison gas, and he ran through the White House knowing it - _he_ \- was following relentlessly like a brain-eating zombie, slamming doors and locking them and hearing Sylar breaking them down, over and over again until finally he got to the big double doors of the master bedroom, desperately trying the handle, fearing it was locked, until unexpectedly they fell open and as he stumbled across the threshold the phone rang, stinging his ear like a bee and he was in his own bed stunned awake with a huge start like the Fool stepping off a cliff.

He picked up the phone gingerly, sweat dripping from his body in the unseasonably hot May weather, and Nathan purred in his ear like a great cat, "Can you come over tonight?"

It was an undercurrent of something, that hungry sound again, in his voice that caught Mohinder's attention, even more than the words themselves. He opened his mouth to say _No_ and heard himself saying _Yes_ instead. He realized he was hard as a rock and trembling like an aspen.

He took a vaguely penitent cold shower, dressed hurriedly and sat in his living room staring out the window. It was raining now, and the half-grown gardenias drooped in their beds. He didn't plant them himself – someone else was paid to do that. When the limousine slicked across the driveway it looked like a big black beetle, a scarab perhaps, or a cockroach.

Nathan was sitting in front of a roaring fire again, despite the weather. He kept it cold in the White House. He dismissed the anonymous Secret Service man with a glance. He looked tired, but his mouth quirked when he saw Mohinder.

”Please. Sit down.”

Mohinder sat. He found it hard to look away from Nathan, even if he'd wanted to. Nathan gave him a solemn look that was obviously supposed to indicate sincerity. Mohinder wondered if his focus groups had told Nathan it was effective.

”I've fixed it.”

Mohinder maintained a skeptical silence. Nathan got up and began to pace in front of the fire, like a caged jaguar, back and forth, back and forth.

Finally he stopped in front of Mohinder and grasped his head in both hands.

“Nothing's good enough for you! Fuck you!" He kissed Mohinder savagely, Mohinder reeling under the attack, and devoured his mouth thoroughly before he broke away gasping and said, "There! Do you think I mean it now? Are you still pretending you don't want that?"

Mohinder licked his lips. He could taste Nathan, a heady mix of whiskey, cigars and power, on himself like a stain. His hindbrain thought it tasted pretty damn good, and made its presence known.

“May I have something to drink? A bit stronger than water, if you please.”

Nathan went over to the bookshelf, poured them two fingers of 30-year-old Scotch each. Mohinder knocked it back and felt it burn a path to his stomach. He shook his head, feeling woozy from the kiss, not the booze.

“Am I going to be your dirty little secret?”

Nathan smiled, this time every inch the backalley politician becoming an accessory to a crime. "Yes."

Mohinder's fists clenched of their own accord, but his pants were getting tight. He wanted this, more than anything since Peter, and since the world was going to hell in a handbasket anyway, what did it matter?

“Damn you.” His curse was half-hearted.

”What's the matter, changed your mind?” The tone light, teasing.

”You know I haven't.”

Nathan's smug grin widened. Mohinder thought of the Cheshire Cat.

”Are you going to feed me first, before I whore myself out to you?”

Nathan almost laughed at that. _Of course he can afford to be generous, he's won._

“Sure, whatever you want.”

He picked up a silver bell sitting on a side table and rang it once. A faceless servant appeared within moments.

They sat across from each other and made small talk for an hour, moving to the small dining room, devouring the deliciously half-raw steak, drinking wine and scotch interchangeably. Mohinder could tell Nathan was enjoying prolonging the agony. His own erection had subsided somewhat but was never far from his mind, as he watched Nathan lick the bloody drippings from his fingers in a civilized display of ravenous sexuality.

Finally dinner was over, they had moved back to the living room - where Nathan had smoked a cigar with his feet up on the coffee table - and now they were just eyeing each other again. As if they'd ever really stopped. Mohinder was feeling the alcohol spurring on the lust in his blood, tired of fighting it, trying to silence the little voice inside him whispering _watch out_.

Nathan was visibly amused again, watching him.

“Have you been wined and dined enough? Do you feel special now?”

“Fuck you.”

“I think it'll be the other way around. At least, that's what I was planning on.”

Damn it, he was blushing again. Mohinder cursed his wretched, traitorous body.

“Well, let's do it then, get it over with.”

“Oh my, what a negative attitude. I know you don't mean that.”

Nathan stood up abruptly, came over to where Mohinder was half-collapsed on the sofa, and unzipped. The sound was sharp, loud in the genteel quiet of the White House, full of invisible servants. He looked down at Mohinder, eyes dark, unreadable except for the obvious.

Mohinder swallowed and licked his lips again, compulsively. He shamed himself by opening Nathan's fly, releasing the stiffness within that made him gasp with its suddenness, by sucking it like the desperate virgin he'd been so long ago, trying to prove his loyalty.

He looked up at Nathan as the physical signs told Mohinder he was close. Nathan's face was in shadow, his own eyes closed, and he shuddered once as the orgasm hit. Mohinder wiped his mouth grimly and sat back on his knees, dimly aware of the fact that they hurt, that if anything he felt worse than he had before he started. He didn't know what he had expected - a momentary crack in the facade, maybe - but Nathan had been in complete control the entire time.

Nathan opened his eyes and smiled down at Mohinder, a smile of infinite cruelty mixed with horrifying tenderness.

“That was really great” he said, like a piano teacher to a small child who had just played his first scale - and badly at that. “Come back tomorrow night and we'll pick up where we left off.”

Mohinder was too dispirited to argue, as his car was summoned and he was whisked away by the President's omnipresent servants.


	3. Chapter 3

The next day he heard nothing. Nor the day after. _I know what he's doing,_ he thought savagely, _he's making me wait on purpose, making me want it more._ At that, the anger left him suddenly, like air out of a pricked balloon. The sad thing was, it was working.

On the third night he was summoned again. There was no other word to describe it, really. He received a phone call from some anonymous flunky indicating that the President requested the honor of his presence at 8:30, and informing him that a car would be sent round accordingly. This was blackly amusing to Mohinder. _Awfully formal for a - what do they call it again? Oh, right - 'booty call'._ He wondered if the servants knew what had changed. Not that it mattered. Nothing seemed to matter much any more. Sometimes he felt that all light had gone out of the world when Peter died. Notwithstanding the absurdly gothic romantic tone of that statement.

He got ready and sat in the kitchen, staring into space. Vaguely he wondered if he might actually get fucked that evening.

The honking of the car's horn cut short that train of thought. _Guess I'll find out soon enough._ Belatedly he thought to speculate if he should have brought an overnight bag.

* * * * *

The bizarre pomp and circumstance continued in the White House, where a servant was waiting and silently led the way, threading through the secret maze of rooms upon rooms, making so many turns that when they finally arrived Mohinder had completely lost his bearings. He felt quite sure this was deliberate. He was left in the presidential bedroom with two bottles of wine, one red and one white. Bored, he sampled them both - they were exquisite. By the time Nathan arrived he was more than a little drunk and feeling somewhat belligerent.

Then the great doors opened and Nathan appeared, somehow making it look like he came out of thin air. Monhinder felt that _presence_ of his, flattening Mohinder like a bug. Nathan glided to the table and poured himself a glass of red. He swirled the blood-colored liquid once, then drained it. Then he turned to Mohinder and husked, "I've been waiting a long time to do this." Before Mohinder had a chance to react, Nathan kissed him deeply, rapaciously, sucking the breath from his lungs like a vampire, making Mohinder dizzy again.

"Where have you been?" he sputtered, well aware that he sounded for all the world like a jealous girlfriend. "And why didn't you call me?"

Nathan clucked. Somehow he made even that sound sexy. "Sorry baby, but you know I've got Presidential stuff to do. Meetings. Treaties." He ran a finger down the side of Mohinder's face, as his voice grew quieter, more intimate. "Unfortunately I can't spend all my time fucking you." His tone was like brown velvet, again almost tactile. Part of Mohinder's brain registered this like a dispassionate observer in a science experiment. The rest of him was melting under this assault like chocolate in August. He knew Nathan had him, could command almost anything right now of Mohinder.

Nathan was standing very close to him now. He exhaled hotly in Mohinder's ear and murmured, "But I'm here now," as his hand ran down the length of Mohinder's chest to his waist, undoing buttons as it went. Mohinder made a little sound that some might have interpreted as a whimper.

* * * * *

Nathan had Mohinder pinned on his cock like a frog in biology class, pithed with pleasure, and he held Mohinder's wrists in an iron grip, while his gaze was spitted likewise on Nathan's stare, almost that of a madman. He was outwardly calm but there was a dormant volcanic fury in his eyes.

"Mohinder," he said, not blinking.

Mohinder said nothing, completely incapable of it, just looked at him.

"I need you to swear that you'll always be loyal to me, no matter what," Nathan said grimly.

Mohinder could only nod. He felt his self-control slipping, knowing Nathan had picked that moment to ask, that he knew Mohinder could refuse him nothing right now.

Nathan's gaze grew even brighter, ignited from within. "Say it. I want to hear you say it."

Mohinder cleared his rusty throat, swallowed what felt like shards of glass. "I hereby swear fealty to Nathan Petrelli," feeling like he was being knighted in a BDSM porno flick.

Something flickered in Nathan's eyes, like a fish darting below the surface of a pond, and then was gone. Nathan began to move under Mohinder, sliding his hips just enough to cause exquisite friction, to make Mohinder want more.

_He wants me to beg_, he realized, and it shouldn't have even been a surprise any more but somehow it still was.

"Please," he said, hearing his own voice ragged, breathless with the exquisite agony of waiting. His heart was pounding like a kettle drum. His left calf began to cramp from the strain of holding the unnatural position, and the shooting pain mingled with his pleasure until it became a single tortured howl of sensation.

"You're mine." Nathan watched Mohinder's face as he levered his hips on the chair to move in tight circles. He whispered it again, almost to himself.

"I'm yours," Mohinder responded automatically. Words had lost all meaning to him; every fiber of his being was concentrated in the sensations flooding his body.

"All _mine_."

"I belong to you completely, for God's sake Nathan fuck me!"

Nathan closed his eyes and began thrusting in earnest, and Mohinder heard himself gasping and crying out as if it were coming from someone else - he hardly recognized the voice as his own, so debauched and abandoned did it sound, and Nathan dropped his wrists and grabbed Mohinder's cock with a sudden wild gesture, and the force and intensity of his own orgasm surprised Mohinder again.

* * * * *

Mohinder did not remember when the light was extinguished, or falling sleep. He only knew it had happened after the fact, when he half-awoke in the middle of the night to find someone stroking his hair and saying his name, softly, as if to him- or herself. He reached out blindly in the pitch darkness and felt _someone_.

He said muzzily, "Nathan?" There was a barely perceptible pause, and the answer came: "Yes." But the voice wasn't right, it was higher and lighter in timbre than Nathan's.

The person withdrew to the other side of the bed with a sigh. Mohinder tried to ponder the meaning of this, but fell back asleep while awaiting a conclusion.

In the morning Nathan was gone. A bell sat on the bedside table for Mohinder to summon an anonymous servant when he was ready to be escorted out to his car.

* * * * *

He didn't expect to hear from Nathan for several days, and having adjusted his expectations downwards, for once was not disappointed. He did, however, receive an unexpected visitor - Matt Parkman. He opened the door intending to go out, for coffee or something, just so he wouldn't be sitting around moping, and there stood Parkman on the doorstep with his hand in the air, looking foolish at being preempted in his knock.

“Oh,” said Mohinder, taken aback. “What are _you_ doing here?” His tone may have been less than flattering.

“I came to talk to you, obviously," Parkman said, with an asperity that was new.

“Well, I was just leaving, _obviously,_” Mohinder replied, rolling his eyes. “Going to get some coffee.” He probably sounded quite begrudging when he added, “I guess you could come with me if you like.”

Instead of going to Starbucks, they went to an ancient diner around the corner, where they got a corner booth. Mohinder sat with his back to the wall, facing the door. Parkman did not like that and kept glancing around nervously.

“Word has it you're keeping company with the President,” he finally came out with.

Mohinder managed not to blush at the thought of what that _company_ had so recently entailed; kept a stone face instead.

“Maybe I am. What's it to you?”

“Are you helping him with his project to develop a way of ID'ing mutants?”

Mohinder eyed him narrowly. “Why?”

“You are, aren't you?”

Mohinder said nothing but stared at him, silently willing him to get to the point.

“Do you seriously believe him when he says it's for their own good? Or are you just so desperate for some remnant of Peter that you'll betray his memory just to be near Nathan?”

This was so close to some of the accusations from his own late-night soul searching that Mohinder flinched, but did not answer.

Parkman leaned forward, pressing his advantage.

“There's something weird about Nathan, something not normal.”

Despite himself Mohinder was interested. “Well, he _is_ a mutant. Maybe that's what you're sensing?”

_His mind is closed to me, he can block me out - but psychic ability is not his power. It doesn't make any sense._

It took Mohinder a moment to realize Parkman's lips had not moved.

_Mohinder, watch out. Something's very wrong with him, he's.. not right, somehow. I can't explain it any better. It's like he's wearing someone else's face._

“A shifter, you mean?”

_Maybe. I don't know for sure. Just be careful. And don't help him with his project. I don’t care what he says, he doesn’t have their best interests at heart. If you ever cared about Peter, don’t let Nathan use you like that._

Mohinder looked down, stirring his coffee for lack of anything to say. When he looked up Parkman was gone and only a few dollars on the table next to his empty mug showed he was ever there.


End file.
